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Patek Philippe is arguably the most coveted of all Swiss luxury-watch brands, but its elegant dials are frequently underappreciated, with competitors Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin in many ways better known for their exquisite dial work. We think that's a mistake. Just two Patek dials in recent years, on the same model, vividly illustrate what we mean.

For four generations, Patek Philippe has been owned by Switzerland's Stern family, and last year it produced a sleek interpretation of the 5960P, an "everyday" platinum watch that first came out in 2006. The 2013 watch combines a self-winding stopwatch, or chronograph, with an annual calendar. On an alligator strap -- priced at $95,400 and seen below -- the watch has a dial made of black opaline, a form of milky glass that starkly sets off the day, date, and month apertures lined across the top of the dial. Its stopwatch counter, controlled by the chronograph pump pushers on the right of the case, sits solidly in the 6 o'clock position, while the gauge telling you how much coiled energy is still stored inside -- the "power reserve," in watch parlance -- perches discreetly at 12 o'clock.

The 2013 5960P in platinum
Photo: Courtesy Patek Philippe

Strap it on and you're ready for a peacock strut to your next meeting. But Patek is a lot like a leading haute-couture house in Paris, forced every year to reinvent itself for rabid collectors and the braying press. Sometimes, it must be said, with equally controversial results. In March, at the annual watch fair in Basel, Penta was handed the latest version of the 5960 by a Patek Philippe executive wearing white gloves, who sweetly informed us that last year's admired version had been discontinued for the 2014 model we had in our hands.

Seen below, it has an all-steel case fused to a stainless-steel bracelet and costs $54,800. The white opaline dial is offset by blackened gold, outlining the apertures; the days of the month are also in black, except for the first day, which appears in the date portal in an alarming red normally found in warning signals.

Red, too, are the running stopwatch hand and the chronograph's minute ticker, while luminous hands -- rarely seen outside sports watches -- and a single blue dot in the chronograph counter, indicating whether it is day or night, subtly add another layer of design nuance. Staggering attention to detail has gone into the dial's tiniest decisions. In last year's black opaline model, minutes are on the outside ring of the chronograph counter, while the hours are inside; in the 2014 version, they are reversed, so the hours rim the outer ring, as the minutes tick inside. It's a small, subtle change that nonetheless helps create the impression this is a different watch.

1930 Patek with Stern Frères dial
Photo: Courtesy Patek Philippe

We caught up with Thierry Stern, now heading up his family's watch company, a month before Basel. Years ago, while still finding his way in the family business, he had to fight hard to convince his father (now semiretired) to add a cutting-edge gray platinum dial to the company's classic portfolio. On the day we met, Stern was clearly excited about the new 5960 dial and watch, even though he could only talk vaguely about the all-steel piece before its official Basel unveiling. "One dial will be quite interesting, and, again, a dial that my father wasn't that thrilled to see," he said. The new dial, he admitted, was "quite aggressive, and not normal for Patek."

Many Patek Philippe collectors sided strongly with Stern père when the watch was finally unveiled in Basel. "I think this is one of the most unattractive pieces Patek has ever released," a collector wrote on watch blog Hodinkee. "Unlike most of the other models, which have undeniable class and scream out luxury, I feel as if this piece could easily have Tag or Citizen written across its dial." Wrote another: "It's a Festina [a Swiss watch that sells at about $250] with a Patek label, for $55,000 in stainless steel. Somewhere in a bank vault in Zurich, they are laughing themselves silly. I never thought I'd say this, but the simple Longines featured today has 10 times the class." Yet another, expressing the minority view, wrote, "Freaking amazing! Give it to me on a strap and I am set."

This is the kind of outrage a provocative haute-couture collection can create with buyers and the fashion press, particularly when they are accustomed to a brand's specific look. It's wise to remember that in this game, indifference, not outrage, is the biggest danger. Our view: Although we're scratching our heads as to why Patek Philippe fused the watchcase to a totally unremarkable steel bracelet, rather than offset its cold steel look with warm leather straps, we think the dial is a work of art.

2014's all-steel case
Photo: Courtesy Patek Philippe

Collectors have a tendency to undervalue dials, as it's the internal mechanics that usually attract their obsessive interest. What we see in the 5960 is consummate craftsmanship. Here, in back-to-back years, are two annual calendar chronograph watches with essentially identical under-the-hood features, and yet they appear radically different, entirely due to the artistry of Patek Philippe's dial makers.

PATEK PHILIPPE WAS FOUNDED in 1839 by Polish émigrés. Not long thereafter, French watch inventor Jean-Adrien Philippe joined forces with co-founder, Antoine Norbert de Patek, and in 1851, the firm renamed itself Patek Philippe & Cie. That was the same year Patek exhibited at the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London and caught the eye of Queen Victoria. Inside the Patek Philippe museum in Geneva -- perhaps the finest private collection of watches in the world and a must-see for anyone visiting Switzerland -- is a glass case entirely devoted to Queen Victoria's Patek acquisitions, including a delicate lilac pocket watch studded with diamonds in a flower motif. Seen below, it cost the monarch 612.50 Swiss francs.

Since that day, a Patek Philippe watch has more or less remained one of the world's most coveted timepieces. But the Great Depression felled one of Patek's key retailers, in Brazil, and soon after gold Patek watchcases had to be melted down just to meet payroll. The company under descendant Adrienne Philippe was nearing bankruptcy.

Enter Charles and Jean Stern. The brothers were partners at Fabrique de Cadran Stern Frères, preferred suppliers of high-end dials to Patek Philippe. Patek's directors, not wanting the firm to fall into a competitor's hands, asked the Sterns for financial help. With the purchase of the remaining 100 shares from a minority shareholder, the brothers took control of Patek Philippe in 1932, with Thierry's great grandfather, Charles, becoming the company's chairman and starting the firm's long march back to health.

Our point? Dial-making is deep in the Stern family's DNA, with the original Patek dials of Jean and Charles Stern still today coveted for their "lambent beauty and hummingbird-bright enameling." The gorgeous single-button Patek chronograph from 1930, pictured at center of the previous page, has a stunningly elaborate but elegant dial by Stern Frères. It sold at Christie's in November 2012 for $282,110, well above its highest estimate.

Today, Patek Philippe makes 55,000 watches a year, its entry-level timepieces selling for $13,000 (women's) and $20,300 (men's) in a portfolio that ranges from the classic dress watch to a sporty marine look. In all iterations, however, there is, at the watch's center, an overlooked dial that casts the unique Patek Philippe magic.

OUR CAR HEADED UP THE steep pass to the mountain village of Saint-Imier in Canton Bern, to the firm's dial factory Cadrans Fluckinger. The 1950s-looking factory has been smartly remodeled with large glass panes -- looking out at chalets, patches of ice, running brooks, and pine forests -- and it produces some 100,000 dials a year, a good portion for the likes of Patek competitors Audemars Piguet, Chopard, and IWC.

A dial generally starts as a brass disk. Electroplating the brass allows Patek to bathe the brass in nickel, to prevent corrosion, followed by layers of gold and then silver, which can't adhere directly to nickel. The dial could then get any number of effects -- hand sanding with a white-stone powder, scrubbing with a brass brush, or a high-pressured blast -- to produce an array of satiny finishes.

Also added might be a very thin layer of mother of pearl, or 12 layers of black varnish to create dials with a lustrous, caviar-black look. Elsewhere, tiny hour numerals are stamped out of gold squares and hand-applied to the dial by artisans peering through microscopes. But our favorite process -- for the richness of the tradition and the depth of the effect -- was found in a room where two master craftsmen were producing guilloché.

Guilloché is an intricate geometric pattern of interlaced or curving lines that is engraved on a watch dial before adding the various varnishes and numerals. Sometimes almost invisible to the naked eye, it nonetheless creates an especially rich and textured tapestry on the dial face. Guilloché is still hand-engraved in the dials using wood-and-steel machines -- gleaming clean and well oiled -- that in some instances date back to 1903. Fact: In the end, each dial undergoes anywhere between 50 and 180 different treatments before it has that unassuming and overlooked aspect of a proper Patek Philippe dial.